1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a method and system for improving and extending available means for entering information into electronic devices in place of actual or virtual keyboards using a digital a camera. The present invention also related to processing text associated with optical character recognition (OCR) and related functions.
2. Related Art
Nowadays there are millions of electronic devices with display screens and applications capable of displaying text, and allowing one to input text through an actual or virtual keyboard. These devices typically have a touch screen, as for example many mobile devices: smartphones, mobile phones, laptops, tablet computers, netbooks, personal digital assistants (PDAs), e-book readers and so on.
Many of the aforesaid devices include advanced displays and associated logic capable of supporting non-keyboard type input methods. For example the devices may support pen-based input and handwriting recognition in addition to touch-based input including use of actual and virtual keyboards and keypads. Many of these electronic devices include a camera component which can be used for optical recognition and insertion of texts captured by the camera.
The aforementioned mobile devices may also include optical character recognition (OCR) software stored in memory.
However, among the significant drawbacks of these devices are their low Optical Character Recognition (OCR) quality due to image blur caused by the movement of the camera and their very slow operation speeds when moving along the text, as they are capable of recognizing only photographed text.
Often, input of information through an actual or virtual keyboard is problematic due to the limit of the size of the characters or keys of the keyboard, limited room on the display for a proper keyboard layout, the limit of time to enter a suitable amount of text and so on. If a user of an electronic device wishes to input any lengthy or substantial sequence of characters, letters, figures, etc., (e.g., a phone number, address of a business for a map application, an SMS text message) a user usually must have access to the traditional virtual or actual keyboard to enter such information. Further, in order to verify correct entry of the information, a user typically must look back and forth between the source of information (e.g., page of a book, lengthy phone number, Web address) or remember the information in strict succession (e.g., phone number, street address). However, in some cases it may be impossible due to environmental conditions, human factors or other unpredictable limitations including those of a software application, a device or an emergent condition or situation of the user. Thus, there is substantial need for improvement of methods of entering text into devices as described more fully herein.